Though he apprenticed on Savile Row, Mr. McQueen, who was 40, thumbed his nose at the conventions of English style by staging often lavish runway productions that included clothes made with animal bones, and models made to look as if they were patients in a mental ward or participants in a life-size chess match. Yet he was a tailor of the highest order, making impeccably shaped suits that were also surprisingly commercial.

His diffusion line, McQ, was scheduled to show at 3 p.m. in New York this afternoon. It has been canceled.